A Tale of Two Men
by Travithian Axile
Summary: There were once two men. One was true, the other false. Light as painted by Matsuda's admiration. A collection of drabbles and ficlets in three arcs, spoilers for the whole manga.
1. Part One: Memory

**Title:**A Tale of Two Men  
**Characters:** Matsuda, Light  
**Rating:**PG  
**Word Count:**1129  
**Summary: **There were once two men. One was true, the other false. A collection of drabbles and ficlets in three arcs.

**Notes****:** This was inspired by an entry I wrote for the dn_contest prompt "Hallucination", which can found here (remove the spaces): http: // community. livejournal. com / dn_contest / 273522 . html # cutid1

* * *

**PART ONE: MEMORY**

For now we see through a glass, darkly; but then face to face; now I know in part; but then I shall know even as also I am known.

-1 Cor 13:12, King James Version Bible

* * *

**I: Meeting**

"Hello, Matsuda. This is my son, Light. He's been very helpful on a few cases we've had trouble with."

"Hello, Light. We've heard a _lot _about you. Nice to meet you in the flesh!"

"That's very kind of you, Matsuda-san." A warm smile, a warm handshake. "I hope we can work together someday."

Matsuda is instantly charmed.

**II: Bond**

Yagami-san goes red and sputters at the sight of the porn stash. Matsuda only grins when he hears about it and grins wider at Yagami-san's scandalized expression.

To him, it proves that Light isn't clockwork perfect, some mechanical person like L with his numbers and deadly whirring brain. It's really the small things that bring out the human side.

**III: Trust**

"I may be Kira," Light says. Guilt, terror, shame—they chase each other across his open face, and Matsuda watches with equal parts fascination and horror.

"The truth is…I had hoped that some of those criminals would die," Light continues. "No, not just criminals. There are a lot of people that I wished would just die…"

"Light!" He can't keep quiet for a second longer and see Light beat himself up for not being perfect. It's not right, it's not fair. "I think of that sometimes too. It's normal to think like that! What matters is that we'd never actually _act _on those impulses!"

But the air is thick with distrust and suspicion, and the fledging hope in Light's eyes dies, newborn.

Still, as they lead him away in handcuffs, Light smiles at him and says, "Thank you."

And Matsuda glows.

**IV: Friendship**

Intellectually, he knows that the fall won't kill him. It's still terrifying as hell.

But it's all worth it to see Light's relief afterwards: "You should be safe from Yotsuba now, Matsuda-san."

**V: Faith**

Matsuda knows that it's wrong.

Outside the world holds its breath, waiting for the next heart attack, for the hand of God to reach down from the heavens and strike the next criminal dead. It is a time of fear and repentance. "The world is ending," say the would-be foretellers on street corners and Internet forums; they say that next it will be the world, crowded with filth and sin, that will receive the touch of Kira's curse/blessing.

But he is almost happy, inside this haven that L has made for them; Matsuda fancies (thanks to too many hours spent on manga) themselves to be superheroes in their secret base, working against the shadowy bad guy. Here, Kira seems far away, rendered impotent against the shared confidence of Light and L. They work like two halves of a whole, leaping off each other's genius to ever higher heights. Once, he walked in on them, firing thoughts at one another and fitting them together like pieces in a jigsaw. They didn't even notice him.

Humbled, he had snuck back out and thought, _He can't possibly be Kira. _

The chain is the only flaw in the overall picture, like an off-tune note in an otherwise masterful song. It's all one big misunderstanding, and Matsuda has faith that one day it will be taken off.

Truth always has a way of revealing itself, in the end.

**VI: Dust**

Matsuda is jubilant. Kira (who is most definitely _not _Light) is in chains, the result of everyone's hard work. His murder weapon is in the hands of L. The police department is ready to welcome them back with open arms. He wonders if the team will be up for a late-night celebration…

Then Higuchi screams and spasms, and Matsuda's dreams all turn to dust.

**VII: Crucible**

"If I were to die, will Light-kun take up the name of L?"

"Don't say things like that…we'll catch Kira for sure."

The illusion of invincibility is just that: an illusion. In retrospect, L's words echo with the weight of prophecy.

"Everyone…the reaper…"

L pauses. The spoon drops from his too-still fingers. The gentle tinkle it makes on the tabletop can barely be heard under the crash as Light lunges forward, hits the floor before the falling man.

"Ryuzaki! Say something…something, anything!"

The world slows down, suspended in an unholy tableau splashed with red. Matsuda presses his hands against his head, as though he can shut out the sound of Light's screams, shut out the reality in which L is dead.

_It was supposed to be over._

**VIII: Promise**

Matsuda waits for the agony to flare up his chest, for his breathing to cut off in gasps and froth. He measures the space between his heartbeats and panics if he thinks the time too long.

His heart beats, beats, beats, strong steady and true. Not like L's heart, stopped forever and ever and—

_Stop it._

"Why are we still alive?" Aizawa asks. They look at each other, and their eyes are afraid. Matsuda has never felt so fragile before, understanding as he does now the entirety of his dependence upon that pulsing lump of flesh in his hot and hollow chest. L, for all his brilliance, his dangerous and ticking mind, had died just like the others: betrayed by his own body.

"I'll avenge Ryuzaki's death," Light declares, seemingly uncaring that Kira has invaded their haven, might be watching, listening, gloating at this very moment. "Only by solving this case, can I bid him farewell…" He bows his head, shadows in his eyes. "To Watari as well, and to the other victims…This is for everyone."

He speaks softly, with determination; he's the hero of this story and he knows it. They are lost and adrift after the storm and he is the only light in a very dark future. His father speaks, emotion choking up his voice. "Light…"

"But we will end up dead for sure," Matsuda cries, terrified that at any moment Light, too, will die for his transgression. "What happened today means…surely…"

Light looks up and gives Matsuda the coldest look he has ever seen. "Matsuda-san, if you are afraid of getting killed, then I suggest you leave…this team only consists of people who are willing to risk their lives."

Matsuda's face burns with shame. "I'm not quitting, of course!"

Later he truly understands the magnitude of his debt to Light, because if not for him he might have given up then and there, spent the rest of his life in fear of the looming shadow of Kira, in guilt for the people he failed to save.

Light reminded him that life is all about fighting back.

Like knights to their lord they swear allegiance to the vision that Light offers.

-end of Part One-

* * *


	2. Part Two: The Dead

**Title:**A Tale of Two Men  
**Characters:** Matsuda, Light  
**Rating:**PG  
**Word Count:**1039  
**Summary: **There were once two men. One was true, the other false. A collection of drabbles and ficlets in three arcs.

**Notes: **Been one week since my university exams ended. The time was spent celebrating with FFVII and SMT: Imagine. Now back to business. Third part is nearly done, needs some polishing.

* * *

**PART TWO: THE DEAD**

This is the way the world ends

Not with a bang but a whimper.

-Elliot T.S., The Hollow Men

* * *

**I: A world gone to the dogs**

The world has not ended. Matsuda wonders if it should be.

Once, he had believed in justice, that shining, nebulous ideal. That ideal is dead or dying. Everywhere he turns Kira's justice seems to have taken over—brutal, uncompromising, the justice of the sword. "Kill lists" dominate the media, reams and reams of names together with their corresponding faces, the full set; the needs of Kira satisfied by his hungry followers.

These are the people Matsuda joined the police force to protect. He can't read the papers or watch TV anymore without a sick lurching feeling in his heart, a sense that invisible walls are rising up and closing in, on what appears to be the last bastion of sanity in this world.

The crime rates are in freefall; the people rejoice at what the old justice failed to do.

**II: Peace in a teacup**

Sitting beside his girlfriend and being harassed by his (very pretty) younger sister, Light looks just like what he should have been; a young man with a promising career and an even brighter future, framed by his loving parents and a family home filled with warmth. There have been little more people whose lives have been derailed as utterly as Light's thanks to Kira, Matsuda thinks with regret. Instead, Light has to work behind an anonymous letter, unrecognized for his efforts and courage.

That will all change, he vows to himself. _When _Kira is finally taken down once and for all.

Then Light will get what he deserves, fair and square.

**III: Tragedy in three**

Soichiro is dead. Incredibly, he's dead.

(He should have taken the Death Eyes, somehow. He should have knocked Soichiro flat, damn his stupid morals, and taken the cursed things for himself. Maybe if he had—)

Sayu is the only one that doesn't cry, her mind lost and bound in some distant place free from pain. Matsuda almost envies her.

He thinks of the night L died, of the lesson he had never had the courage to learn. Things can change at any given time. The people that Matsuda admires most are hardly immune. For all their intelligence, their sense of justice, they are susceptible to death like any ordinary person; even more so, perhaps.

And because he is not brave enough, he turns to Light, as he has always done. Light has to prevail, he hopes, he hopes. Light _will _prevail.

(Light bows his head, wipes the back of his hand across his eyes. Then he's in charge again. How many blows can a man take and remain standing?)

**IV: Poison in the waters**

It used to be them against the madness raging outside. It used to be so simple.

Near changed everything, with his loaded words and insinuations. _You used to be the Kira suspect, L, _he says. _The rules are false, L, _he says.

Now even Aizawa and Mogi, even Ide, _look _at Light in a certain way and whisper behind their hands, and it's like the old days again, only worse. Matsuda can't understand. Mello and Near and Light, they are all L's descendants. Why are they working against each other?

He can't help but resent Near, just a little. Things were fine before he arrived on the scene. Kira is going to win at this rate, he thinks bitterly, with his biggest enemies turning against each other.

The tension simmers. Light spends less and less of his time with them, and more and more with his new love Takada. No wonder.

**V: Kingdom come**

At twelve midnight, in a masquerade, the dancers stop spinning and take off their glorious feathered masks to show their true faces to their partners.

At forty seconds, Yagami Light takes his off—and oh, what a horrible, horrible face lies beneath! His perfect lips curl into a smile, and he says, "_I win."_

(The words hang in the air, crystal clear. They can't be misheard or denied.)

At this moment, Matsuda almost welcomes the invisible, looming death that awaits.

**VI: The way the world ends**

Matsuda thought he knew what was like to be the only sane man in a roomful of maniacs.

_Light? _Kira? _I thought we'd put that behind us already! God! What's wrong with all of you?_

Now, as he watches Light fall, he knows what it's like to be a madman in a mental ward, gibbering nonsense while everyone watches with pity; and worse, he knows brutally _what it's like to wake up and realize the truth._

Light hits the ground, just a second before the tears he hadn't known he was crying.

**VII: The end of an age**

It is Matsuda who rearranges the contorted limbs. It is Matsuda who shuts the staring eyes, who covers the twisted face with his coat.

"You should have let me go to him."

"You couldn't have helped him. I know you were very close to him, but—"

"He didn't deserve to die alone!"

"What about those he killed? The countless men and women, who died alone and without justice? Why does he deserve the privilege of company more than them?"

Silence, closed and damning.

"No one deserves to die like that. But he didn't deserve a friend like you, either."

**VIII: A King's Farewell**

Light had many friends. Matsuda was one of them, once upon a long ago time.

The white flowers curl their soft petals around Light's face, long released from its damning expression of shock and fear. The blood has been washed away and he looks the young and innocent boy that Matsuda had thought he had known. The makeup artist had done an excellent job. Nothing less than the best for a supposed hero, after all.

Matsuda tosses his own flower into the open casket. It floats for a moment before gently touching down on Light's shoulder. Light sleeps, undisturbed.

Today, Light will go up in flames; an appropriate end for a man consumed so utterly with his own delusion of grandeur. Matsuda feels as though his own heart is ash already; unlike Light's, it will remain within its jar of clay, a dead and leaden weight.

He tells himself he will not cry. He lies.

-end of Part Two-


	3. Part Three: The Living

**Title:**A Tale of Two Men  
**Characters:** Matsuda, Light  
**Rating:**PG  
**Word Count: **728  
**Summary: **There were once two men. One was true, the other false. A collection of drabbles and ficlets in three arcs.

**Notes: **The last of the arcs. Sorry for taking so long to edit. Thank you to everyone who read this, and those who reviewed and favorited this fic to show that they liked it.

**

* * *

PART THREE: THE LIVING**

"The past is never dead. It's not even past."

-William Faulkner, Requiem for a Nun

**

* * *

I: Reset, restart**

"Crime rates are back up." He tosses a newspaper on the desk.

"Are you trying to make a statement, here?" Aizawa rubs his eyes, tired. Too tired to want a fight.

Matsuda shrugs. "I'm just saying that the world is going back to normal. The way it was before…Kira."

**II: A boat against the current**

When the cat is gone, the mice come out to play. The criminal element, repressed for so long, springs back to life as though trying to make up for lost time, and for a while Matsuda is kept busy. The Kira case had consumed his life utterly for so long that it is only in hindsight that he can realize, aside from the looming threat of a heart attack descending out of the blue, just how _easy _it had been in comparison.

Things, nevertheless, are comfortingly black and white once more. He's not really sure how he is supposed to feel about that.

But he knows he isn't supposed to feel guilty, when the letters come in, scored with angry lines, or sometimes worse, stained with tears: _What did you do to Kira to make him go away?_

And then he is angry and sad all over again, both at the same time, because those people only _thought _they knew Kira, that he had been some sort of shining saint, pure and untouchable; when he had been merely human and mad with too much power. He had thought he had known who Light was, and had been wrong; now he thinks he knows what Kira was, and it is his greatest fear that maybe he is wrong again.

For some people, Kira had meant hope.

**III: The shape of his/her heart**

On February 14th, 2011, Matsuda goes on a date with a co-worker. They hit it off straightaway and spend the night staggering from nightclub to nightclub, laughing with _just _the faintest trace of drunkenness. He walks her back to her house at three in the morning and kisses her under the soft glow of a streetlamp.

He is dressed in white; and the red of her lipstick glows against his collar. He thinks he might like her.

On February 14th, 2011, Amane Misa overdoses on sleeping pills and kills herself. She is found three days later by her sister, sprawled sideways on the bed she and her fiancé used to share.

She is dressed in white; and on her finger, her wedding ring glitters in between the crawling flies. "Poor thing," they murmur later. "She was still in love with him."

**IV: The importance of being alive**

Matsuda pays his respects at the grave, afterwards; because he feels responsible, because they were all the same, made fools of by Light and his fake/true smile. Most of all because she should have lived.

_I would have once died for Light, too._

Matsuda tries hard not to feel guilty that he is alive. To his surprise, he mostly succeeds.

**V: A new beginning**

Who knows who was right?

Maybe Near did kill Mikami. Maybe he did burn the notebooks to hide his guilt, and he certainly was a bastard in the finest tradition of the L line capable of doing such things. It doesn't make Light's guilt any less damning, his deeds any less heinous.

Matsuda still thinks of the past, the Yellow Box, everything that seems more and more like some incredible dream as time goes on. A notebook that killed—how ludicrous, if he had not borne witness to it, and lived to remember the tale.

But Ide _is _right, about one thing: that they are alive, there's a life before him to fill with less painful memories. Others weren't so lucky. He had for a brief moment glimpsed death; he had known the depths of despair. Everything could only be uphill after that.

He will live life to the fullest, and do his best what he thinks is right. It's not the best philosophy that ever was, a humble one in light of the competing beliefs that had shaken the world, but it is one that he is sure he can live by, and hurt no one else but himself. It is enough to comfort him.

**VI: And life goes on…**

This is the tale of one man, and he was true to the end of his days.

_**The end**_


End file.
